Today, companies and persons rely on having a consistent supply of power to electronic devices more than ever before. Without power, companies may be unable to manufacture goods, or to operate at all, such as if the company is in the business of supplying information over the Internet. Without power, businesses and individuals may be completely incapacitated regarding critical activities, such as making goods, providing services, and transacting personal finances (e.g., filing tax returns, and paying bills). With such a heavy reliance on power, individuals and companies frequently like to be able to have power outages corrected in short order, and/or have backup power supplies so that their affairs and/or businesses are not significantly affected.
Alternative energy sources, such as solar energy, are desirable sources of energy for both home use and commercial use. For home use, users may need alternative energy sources due to their homes not being connected to a power grid, or may desire alternative energy sources to supplement power from a power grid. For off-grid houses, solar panels may be used to receive solar energy, convert the solar energy to electrical energy, and store the electrical energy in batteries for future use. For example, the batteries may be used to provide power at night or other times when the solar energy is unavailable. These off-grid systems can be complex, expensive, and physically large. For on-grid houses, systems for converting solar energy do not use batteries and run in parallel with the power grid. If the power grid is within specifications, then energy obtained through the solar system is used locally as desired, with excess energy provided by the solar systems being sent to the grid, and energy above that provided by the solar system being used to power the loads being drawn from the grid.
For on-grid solar energy systems, safety issues exist with respect to servicing the power grid during brownouts or blackouts. When utility power is out of specification (e.g., a brownout or a blackout), energy needs to be inhibited from entering the grid during repair of the grid so that workers repairing the grid are not electrocuted when working downstream from a power source.